Advent of a global communications network such as the Internet has facilitated exchange of enormous amounts of information. Additionally, costs associated with storage and maintenance of such information have declined, resulting in massive data storage structures. Hence, substantial amounts of data can be stored as a data warehouse, which is a database that typically represents business history of an organization. For example, the history data can be employed for analysis that supports business decisions at many levels, from strategic planning to performance evaluation of a discrete organizational unit. Such can further involve taking the data stored in a relational database and processing the data to make it a more effective tool for query and analysis
Accordingly, it is important to store such data in a manageable manner that facilitates user friendly and quick data searches and retrieval. In general, a common approach is to store electronic data in one or more databases. A typical database can be referred to as an organized collection of information with data structured such that a computer program can quickly search and select desired pieces of data, for example. Commonly, data within a database is organized via one or more tables. Such tables are arranged as an array of rows and columns.
Moreover, such tables can comprise a set of records, wherein a record includes a set of fields. Records are commonly indexed as rows within a table and the record fields are typically indexed as columns, such that a row/column pair of indices can reference particular datum within a table. For example, a row can store a complete data record relating to a sales transaction, a person, or a project. Likewise, columns of the table can define discrete portions of the rows that have the same general data format, wherein the columns can define fields of the records.
Each individual piece of data, standing alone, is generally not very informative. Database applications make data more useful because they help users organize and process the data. Database applications allow the user to compare, sort, order, merge, separate and interconnect the data, so that useful information can be generated from the data. Capacity and versatility of databases have grown incredibly to allow virtually endless storage capacity utilizing databases. However, typical database systems offer limited query-ability based upon time, file extension, location, and size. For example, in order to search the vast amounts of data associated to a database, a typical search is limited to a file name, a file size, a date of creation, etc., wherein such techniques are deficient and inept.
With a continuing and increasing creation of data from end-users, the problems and difficulties surrounding finding, relating, manipulating, and storing such data is escalating. End-users write documents, store photos, rip music from compact discs, receive email, retain copies of sent email, etc. For example, in the simple process of creating a music compact disc, the end-user can create megabytes of data. Ripping the music from the compact disc, converting the file to a suitable format, creating a jewel case cover, and designing a compact disc label, all require the creation of data.
Not only are the complications surrounding users, but developers have similar issues with data. Developers create and write a myriad of applications varying from personal applications to highly developed enterprise applications. While creating and/or developing, developers frequently, if not always, gather data. When obtaining such data, the data needs to be stored. In other words, the problems and difficulties surrounding finding, relating, manipulating, and storing data affect both the developer and the end user. In particular, the tracking of a data change and/or manipulation associated with such escalating amounts of data can prove to be an impossible task.
Typically, business entities create and maintain their databases through a high volume of relatively simple transactions, with an essential function of a database engine being able to execute a plurality of such transactions concurrently. Each of such plurality of transactions can be considered a piece of work, which can further consist of a sequence of operations such as, read, write, update, and/or delete, against a database. Such transaction can represent well-understood business operations (e.g., creating a new customer record, noting an account payment or transfer, and the like). Increasingly enterprises are becoming interested in running more ad hoc unstructured queries against their online data. As such, a measure of the correctness and change tracking of the state of the database or database integrity becomes increasingly vital.